Hello fitness friends, here’s a unique and effective way to force yourself to succeed with your fitness goals.

You’ve probably tried telling yourself that you need to lose a certain amount of weight by a certain date, or you will go to the gym every day, or you will stop eating sugars. How is that going? Hopefully well, but the reality is that for most of us, life gets in the way, we’re interrupted by a sudden event or some days we simply feel too tired to workout.

The problem is that, while we have good intentions, talking to ourselves does not work very well. Simply saying to yourself that you are going to do something is a good start, but in order to really succeed and feel the fire under your butt, you must have an external obligation. What I mean by that is that you need to make your goal public in some way that you will not want to fail. This doesn’t mean that you are going to repeatedly impose your personal goals to your friends and annoy them along the way. I have a more original method.

Hit yourself where it hurts

I am not suggesting you get a close friend to kick you in the family jewels or take an elbow to the boob. I’m talking about your wallet.

Make a bet with friends that you are gong to be at a certain weight or a certain waist size, or your arms will grow to a certain size by a certain date. Then GIVE THEM THE MONEY. Yep, give them the money first and if you don’t reach your goal, they keep it. This way you know you’re serious and it’s up to you to get it back. Now it has to be a good amount that will actually hurt. Try $100 or more if that might not do it. If you fail they keep it. If you win they give you a mere 10% extra meaning that you will get your $100 back + $10. They get the chance to win $100 but only lose $10. You deserve to make something for your hard work, right?

Now it has to be a realistic goal. Smaller goals are better because you will be encouraged to do it again and keep reaching these goals until they combine to form a big goal. For example, my 10in30 Lose plan shows you how to lose 10 pounds in a month. This is a big goal. Possible, but big. You can do the plan but bet on losing 5 pounds to allow for life’s little interruptions. You never know, you might end up surpassing this making the extra $10 and be super-stoked to do it again next month!

Let me know in the comments if you’ve ever done something like this and what you think. Gonna try it? Wahtsamatter—scurred? 😛